Free Falling, As If in a Dream

by Free Falling, As If in a Dream (retail) (epub)

  “Cool thing, huh,” said Tischler, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you know who this is, by the way?” he asked, pointing to the prize winner for 1967.

  “Yes,” said Mattei. “If he’s the one I think he is.”

  “Always was a fucking hypocrite,” said Tischler. “Looked hideous even back then, but he was completely phenomenal at getting the ladies on their backs. Wonder just how much he might give for this today?”

  Wonder what he would give for it? thought Lisa Mattei when she was on the subway on her way back to the police building. And wonder just what Lars Martin Johansson would say if I asked to look at fund manager Nils Hermansson’s ass? she thought.

  Instead of asking for permission she wrote a summary of her conversation with Tischler, and before she went home she stopped by Johansson’s office and asked him to read it.

  “I thought we were finished with this issue,” muttered Johansson.

  “If you’ll just read what Tischler had to say, boss. Before you send me down to the parking garage.”

  “Hell,” said Johansson five minutes later. “This is not the usual nonsense. This is something different. I don’t like that part about the poor dog and the arson and Ass Herman. We’ll have to pull out those old witness statements from the shooting on Sveavägen. I want to know everything the witnesses say about the perpetrator’s physical description. Then I want the technical report on the firing angle and the probable height of the perpetrator.”

  “I’ve already looked at that,” said Mattei. “You can too, boss, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  “Why not?” said Johansson.

  “It can’t have been Claes Waltin,” said Mattei, shaking her head. “Not a chance. He’s way too short. At least four inches too short.”

  “Thanks, Lisa. I forgive you,” said Johansson for some reason. She’s like me, he thought. When she knows something and has that look, that’s just how it is.

  “One more thing, if you have time, boss,” said Mattei.

  “Of course,” said Johansson. “Why don’t you sit down, by the way?”

  “Thanks,” said Mattei.

  When Mattei had gone through the testimony of the eyewitnesses about the murder on Sveavägen again, she discovered a circumstance that was possibly interesting considering the previous.

  “Listening,” said Johansson.

  “I’m sure you remember the witness that Lewin called Witness One in the so-called witness chain. He’s the one who hides among the construction site trailers on Tunnelgatan, sees the perpetrator run past, up the stairs—”

  “I remember,” Johansson interrupted.

  “The first interview with Witness One was held on the night of the murder. Then he gave his physical description of the perpetrator. After that additional interviews were held with him over the following ten years. Even after the prosecutor’s petition for a new trial was rejected. There are a total of eight interviews, besides the first one.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” said Johansson. “What’s the problem?”

  “That he knew of Christer Pettersson,” said Mattei. “They lived in the same area, and Witness One knew very well who Christer Pettersson was. Knew of him before the murder of Palme, knew what he looked like, knew what kind of person he was.”

  “But it wasn’t Christer Pettersson he saw run past in the alley,” said Johansson, smiling for some reason.

  “No,” said Mattei. “The first time he mentions Pettersson is more than two years later when he is interviewed about Pettersson in particular. Then he relates that he knew of Christer Pettersson.”

  “But that he wasn’t the one he saw on the night of the murder.”

  “He’s more careful than that,” said Mattei. “First he says what he did about Pettersson, and then he explains that he did not associate him with the man who ran past. Neither spontaneously in connection with the observation or later when he bumped into Pettersson in the area where he lived. He thinks he ought to have recognized him if it really was him.”

  “Good, Mattei,” said Johansson. “In contrast to the nitwit who held the initial interview with him, you have just done a little real police work. You have thereby earned yourself a little gold star.”

  “I was hoping for a big one,” said Mattei.

  “No way,” said Johansson. “I’ve never believed in Pettersson. Wrong type. I realized that from the start, and the thing with Witness One I discovered myself almost twenty years ago.”

  “Thanks anyway, boss,” said Mattei. So why didn’t you say that? she thought.

  “It’s nothing,” said Johansson. “That society,” he said, nodding at Mattei.

  “I’m listening,” said Mattei.

  “Do a search on the ones who were involved and see if you find them in the case files.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “No,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders. “I just have a hard time with those kinds of characters.”

  In the evening when she and Johan were lying in her bed in the oversized apartment her kind dad had given her, she told him about Claes Waltin, without saying what his name was or why she was compelled to be interested in him. She only told everything she’d heard about him.

  “Sexual boundary crossing,” Johan observed. “There’s a lot of role-playing in that area. But not in this case. This is something really bad. Genuine misogyny.”

  “Not boundary crossing,” said Mattei, shaking her head. “To me he seems completely lacking in boundaries or perhaps free of boundaries. Not immoral, more like amoral. Completely free of morals. The only restraints he seems to have had were the sort that prevented him from being put in jail.”

  “That’s not enough,” said Johan, shaking his head. “We’re talking about an evil human being. An evil and intelligent human being. Are you familiar with Patricia Highsmith’s books about the talented Mr. Ripley?”

  “So-so,” said Mattei. “I haven’t read any of them.”

  “I have a good film we can watch if you like. With Alain Delon in the lead role as Mr. Ripley. There are several, but this one’s the best if you’re interested in an evil psychopath. Not all psychopaths are evil, as I’m sure you know.”

  “We’ll get to that later,” said Lisa Mattei, stretching herself in bed. “Now we’ll move on to something else, I think.” Some regular fun that’s only a little on the edge, she thought.

  Mallorca, present day

  Esperanza was not just a boat. Esperanza was also an insurance policy that would protect him if something unwanted happened. Esperanza, which was strong enough, durable enough, to take him to the mainland on the Spanish, French, or African side. Or to Corsica where there were many like him, and at least one whom he trusted unconditionally. A constant reminder of the only mistake he had made in his life.

  Only fools trusted in fate. Only fools put their lives in the hands of someone else. Personally he had always been his own master. Always capable of mastering any unexpected situation and quickly regaining control over his life. Paddle your own canoe; his father had taught him that. He had lived that way too. Until the day he trusted another person and made himself dependent on him. Actually put his life in his hands. The only mistake worth the name in his entire life.

  Naturally he had corrected that. Decided to do it as soon as he sensed that the one he was dependent on was starting to descend into his own self-inflicted misery and could no longer be trusted. The eternal observation, which even the hoods in Hells Angels had the good sense to adopt as their rule of conduct. That three people might very well keep a secret if two of them were dead. For him it had been simpler than that, because there were only two of them to start with. Then he solved his problem. Regained his solitude, took back power over his life, and the worry that at first remained he handled by having Esperanza built. As an insurance policy against the undesired and as a constant reminder not to repeat his mistake.

  He did not even need to plan his rehabilitation. He avoided planning. The more c
arefully you planned, the greater the chance that you would meet with the unexpected, the uncontrollable, which meant that all your plans were suddenly turned upside down. He had simply done what he had always done. Had the goal before his eyes, a simple framework for action as support, waited for the opportunity and seized it in flight.

  That was his strength. Seizing opportunity in flight. That was what he had done that morning he’d seen him on the beach below the hotel. Seized the opportunity in flight, because he was all alone, not a person in the vicinity and no need to wait any longer. He stood up in the boat he’d rented. Waved to him, watched him swim toward the boat, grasped his hand, helped him up on deck. Then he won back his solitude, his freedom. Afterward he decided to build Esperanza and never soil her with the sort of thing he had just been forced to do.

  Nowadays he didn’t even think about it. Not fifteen years later. Not now when everything was over and nothing else could happen to him. One time was no time for anyone who was his own master, and the other times when he had been alone from the start had never bothered him. He and Esperanza. A beautiful little boat, an insurance policy, a constant reminder.

  62

  Wednesday, September 19, three weeks remaining until October 10.

  Headquarters of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation on Kungsholmen in Stockholm

  Their usual meeting was canceled on short notice. Johansson was otherwise engaged, and he let it be known by phone that he would be in touch as soon as he had time and no later than that afternoon. As far as the team’s continued work was concerned, he still wanted the name of the bastard. Preferably immediately and no later than the weekend.

  Holt and Lewin would finish the survey of Waltin. They agreed that Lewin should run the desk work while Holt would take care of the field efforts. She knew she needed to get out and move around.

  Before Mattei returned to the Palme investigation’s archive and the police track, she took care of Johansson’s request and did a search on the four members of the Friends of Cunt Society, founded in 1966, dissolved, finished, dormant five years later.

  First she typed in the names and social security numbers of all four members. In alphabetical order by surname: attorney Sven Erik Sjöberg, deceased in December 1993 after a long illness. Former chief prosecutor Alf Thulin, now a member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Administration of Justice and even mentioned in the media as a possible conservative minister of justice. Banker Theo Tischler, for many years now with a registered address in Luxembourg. Claes Waltin, former police chief superintendent with SePo, dead in a drowning accident on north Mallorca in the fall of 1992.

  The rest was a matter of pushing the right keys on the computer, and a mere fifteen minutes later she sat with three hits on names and ten references to the investigation files that produced the hits.

  Attorney Sven Erik Sjöberg had been interviewed on two occasions due to his possible connection to the “Indian weapons track” or the “Bofors affair.” He had been a Bofors attorney for many years, even served on the company’s board for a few years. He had not been able to contribute anything of substance to the investigation of the murder of Olof Palme. Besides, his personal opinion was that every such assertion—that the murder of the prime minister could have had anything whatsoever to do with the company’s sale of artillery to the Indian government—was “completely ridiculous.”

  The deal stood on its own steady legs. The Bofors long-range 155 millimeter field howitzer was by far the best artillery piece on the market. It was no more complicated than that, and the Indians should simply be congratulated for making the best choice. If you wanted to inquire into things that concerned business secrets, military secrets, or secrets between two friendly nations, you would have to take that up with someone besides him. The Munitions Inspection Board, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish and Indian governments.

  That part of the matter had then been concluded by the national prosecutor, who at that point in time was the formal leader of the preliminary investigation into the murder of the prime minister.

  In connection with the usual summer vacations in the prosecutor’s office, chief prosecutor Alf Thulin had substituted as one of the “Good Guys.” In part for the colleague who had been leader of the preliminary investigation in the Palme case during the summer of 1990. After that he had returned as an expert and technical adviser in one of the many review commissions set up by the government. In the minutes from a meeting of the commission, which for unclear reasons ended up in a binder in the Palme investigation, he had expressed his definite opinion on the Palme case. It was Christer Pettersson who murdered Olof Palme, and what the prosecutor’s office’s work now “concerned in all essentials” was trying to construct a petition for a new trial that the Supreme Court could accept.

  Banker Theo Tischler ended up in the investigation due to three different tips that were turned in from the group of private investigators in the Palme murder. According to these tips he was supposed to have had close contacts with police chief Hans Holmér, even after Holmér had been fired as investigation leader. According to the same informant, Tischler was supposed to have offered several million to Holmér so he could continue working on the so-called Kurd track. That was what every thinking private investigator right from the beginning understood to be a red herring, set out by Holmér and his associates to protect the real perpetrator.

  Tischler had been interviewed for informational purposes about this in the summer of 2000, over fourteen years after the murder. He had not minced words. He had never met Holmér, much less given him any money. On the other hand he had been asked to do so by a mutual acquaintance a year or two after the murder. After having talked with his own contacts “within the social democratic movement and close to the administration” he decided not to give a krona to Holmér and his allies. In conclusion he then congratulated the two interview leaders for the swiftness with which they seemed to be running this case.

  “If I did business the same way you gentlemen run police work, I would have been in the poor house thirty years ago.”

  The one interview leader regretted his attitude. Personally he and his colleagues were doing the best they could, and the mills of justice ground slowly as everyone knew.

  “Sorry to hear that the bank manager has that attitude,” said the interview leader.

  “I’m a private banker,” said Tischler “Not a fucking bank manager, for in that case I might just as well have applied for a job with the police.”

  The only one of the four that Mattei couldn’t find on her computer was Claes Waltin, which made no great difference because Lewin found him anyway.

  After that she returned to the police track. Mission: Find someone who knew Waltin. Find someone tall enough to tally with the witness statements. Find someone capable of shooting a prime minister in public, with scores of witnesses right in the vicinity. Find someone capable enough to escape unscathed.

  However you find someone like that, thought Mattei, looking at the binders with all the police officers sitting in front of her on the desk. A total of a hundred police officers. Seventy of whom had been identified, questioned, investigated, ruled out. Another thirty whose identity was not certain, several of whom had probably never been policemen. Had only said they had been.

  First she tried to sort them by height. That didn’t go very well. Information about their height was missing in the majority of cases. Besides, almost all policemen in that generation would have been tall enough to shoot the prime minister.

  With the help of their age, height, other information about physical features, and from those investigations that left no room for any remaining suspicions, she had nonetheless been able to cross out fifty or so of the seventy known colleagues who had been singled out. True, it had taken her almost the entire day, but she did it for lack of anything better to do, and she had to start somewhere.

 
; Ordinary policemen had the peculiarity that they preferred to associate with other policemen, thought Mattei. Waltin on the other hand had not been an ordinary policeman. Which is why Lisa called her mother and asked whether she would have lunch with her. She was happy to. She had actually intended to call her daughter and ask the same thing. She would explain why when they met.

  To save time they met in the police building restaurant, where they found a sufficiently isolated table. As soon as they sat down Linda Mattei revealed her intentions.

  “Are you pregnant?” said Linda Mattei to her only daughter, Lisa.

  “But mother. Of course I’m not.”

  “But you’ve met someone,” she continued.

  “The answer is yes,” said Lisa Mattei. “What do you think about trading question for question?”

  “Is he nice?”

  “Yes again.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Yes again. Johan.”

  “Johan?”

  “Yes again. Johan Eriksson.”

  “So what does he do?”

  “Studies at the university, in cinema studies, sublets a studio on Söder. Works on the side as a guard.” I’m sure you’ve seen him, she thought.

  “Lisa, Lisa,” said her mother, shaking her head. Then she leaned over and stroked her across the cheek.

  “Now it’s my turn,” said Lisa Mattei. “I have the right to six questions, and you’ll get two free answers because I’m so nice and because you should calm down. Yes, you’ll get to meet him. Yes, he’s a little like Dad. Although twice as big. At least.”

  “I will get to meet him?” Linda Mattei repeated.

  “The answer is yes. Seven questions. My turn.”

  “Okay. Ask away,” said Linda Mattei, shaking her head and smiling.